...but I do have a good tool for the job! This is a cast-aluminum garden dibble, and I'm pretty sure I got it from High Country Gardens a few years ago. I really love using this thing, and as you can see, it's made really well. I always thought this would make for a good C.S.I. episode..."Death by Dibble"....heh....but I digress. Anyhow, I've always heard that roses love garlic, so I planted these all around my rugosa roses. Since I got these for free, and planted them quickly and kind of hap-hazardly, I anticipate they will grow like crazy!
Also planted recently are these foxtail lilies from Van Bourgondien . The first one I planted was bigger than this, but I forgot to get a picture...kinda looks like a big tarantula. They looked pretty nice, so I hope they grow well. I'd always wanted some of these, so I'm excited to see what they'll do.
I planted them along the fence here, since they are tall. I'd also read that they don't like to be disturbed once planted, so two are to the left of the trellis, and one to the right. I put some pound-in plastic edging behind it all first, because the bunnies and chipmunks zoom under this fence like a freeway. Done for now....is it spring yet?
14 comments:
It seems like everyone is planting garlic. I heard garlic is a good to put on plants as an insecticide I believe, but don't quote me. I hope they grow nice for you and your lilies. Those foxtail lilies are rally interesting looking and bright! Those foxtail lilies are now added to my future must have list. Wow that list gets longer everyday! Good luck keep us updated with the growth.
garlic is a nice natural insecticide. It is best when reduced into an oil and diluted with water. Mix it with peppermint, and presto.
i love your pictures.
i love your blog.
happy growing!
xoxoxo
I planted bulbs today, too! Some white daffodils with pink tipped cups and some pink alliums, and a few giant blue alliums. Is it spring yet? LOL ...such anticipation. ;-)
Vanillalotus-Heh..."plant list-o-megaly" is a real hazard of blogging...the list grows to epic proportions, directly related to how many garden blogs you view! Seeing things in other climates and growing zones can cause a dangerous increase in houseplants, too. ;-)
Funtime-Thank you! Your blog is pretty darn cool, too! I'll have to try that insecticide thing for sure!
Connie-Good luck with your bulbs as well!
Hi Lisa,
Foxtail lily bulbs look to me like they have tentacles reaching out. It's hard to believe they produce such beautiful flowers. I love them.
Good luck with the garlic. I wonder if I would be successful doing a winter sowing of garlic.
That is one cool dibble!
Oops ... I used my wrong google account to post the above comment.
Those foxtail lilies are pretty flowers, and you're right the bulbs look like spiders. I kind of shuddered looking at them, and thought, "Spider..?"
I tried garlic once and the bulbs rotted in the ground. Where I am, we get best results from top-setting onions.
You can check 'em out here:
http://www.territorial-seed.com/stores/1/Egyptian_Walking_-_Organic_P3137C117.cfm
Kate-Thanks! I bet you'd do fine with a winter-sow of garlic, as long as the ground isn't frozen. (They say it should be planted in fall, anyhow.)
Chuck-Thanks for the link! I've always wanted to try those walking onions, not even to eat, just because they look cool. Since you're not fond of spiders, I presume you won't be buying any foxtail lilies anytime soon?
Those are interesting garlic bulbs - I think I read recently about some new kind of garlic that only has one clove per bulb. Can't remember any more about it than that. Maybe in a catalog somewhere? Or maybe it's a function of how they grow it?
I'm not sure about these. The teenager at the garden center called them "garlic seeds", and said they were free. Well, being the power-scrounger that I am, I grabbed a handful. So maybe they have cloves when they get bigger? Heh...this is what happens when you DON'T do your homework! ;-)
Those garlic cloves are HUGE!!! Wow. That reminds me, I need to go get my garlic in the ground sooner rather than later (this is later than last year, oops!) especially since mine is smaller than yours. I probably need to give them more time to get big. lol.
Those foxtail lily roots are cool-looking. Isn't it amazing how you can put things that look like freeze-dried tarantulas in the ground and get gorgeous flowers to bloom from them next year?
Huge? I should have put my hand next to them for size comparison, because the largest one was ping-pong ball size, most of them were grape-sized. But being my first planting of these, maybe that's big & I don't realize. There were so many in the bag, I put 2-4 in each hole...they'll probably ALL grow, and I'll wind up thinning them...we'll see. I absolutely agree, some of the things we grow look really strange "naked" like this. There are some corms and tubers that I have trouble figuring out which way is up.
Lisa, I recently read an excerpt from "The Garlic Testament" by Stanley Crawford, which talked about growing garlic seed tops, AKA bulbils. The first season they produced grasslike leaves. The tops died back at the end of the summer, stayed dormant for awhile. When dug up, they'd produced a solid small bulb, not cloven, called a garlic round. Some months later cooler damp weather caused the rounds to resprout, forming different, folded leaves and in another season they made cloves.
I have a vintage dibble - acquired several decades ago when a gardener went into retirement. We can't use it yet for planting anything in this rock laden, heavy clay soil, but I have hopes for the future!
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Thank you, Annie for all the good information! Since they were so small (and free), I figured them to be infants/larvae/bulbils of some sort. I seem to remember some glad bulbs having those cute bulbils on them one year as I went to dig them up. As for soil, I feel roughly 3/4 of your pain-lots of rocks, but only a couple veins of clay. I have a sturdy step-on bulb hole digger that does okay, although it dulls fast on the sand, and basically only leaves a "dig here" circle when a rock is present. But at least I get all my spots marked before I set the design. (I can be a real color-planning spaz when it comes to my bulbs ;-)
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